A teenager made this decision

Picture the person who actually made this decision. They were somewhere between thirteen and nineteen. They could not sign a lease, take out a loan, or be trusted with a car after dark. They were desperate to be read a certain way by four or five specific people whose names you might not even remember now. That is who committed you to this. Not the adult reading these words. Not the one who pays for it, coughs through it, hides it and gets up early to service it. A child signed, and you have honored it ever since.

Look at the terms they agreed to. They had no information. No figure for what it would cost across thirty years, no idea that the times of their day would be assigned to them by something else, no warning that the effect would shrink while the count climbed. Nobody read them the price list, and nobody could have, because that price arrives in slivers over decades. They were not weighing anything. They were solving a room, on a Friday, in front of people. It worked, and the bill went to an adult who was not there and had no vote.

Which raises a question worth answering directly, tonight. Would you sign it today? Given the actual terms, laid out plainly, at your age, knowing everything you now know about what it takes and what it hands back. Not one person would. You would not sign it on behalf of your own child, and you would move mountains to keep it away from them. So the only thing keeping this contract alive was that nobody ever reopened it. No adult renewed it. No adult ever cancelled it either.

So cancel it now, in your own name, as the person who was always going to pay for it. You are not bound by a decision made by someone who could not legally buy cigarettes. That kid was not stupid and does not deserve your contempt. They were young in a hard room and did what young people do there. Forgive them, and take the pen back. God handed this decision to the adult you are now, not to the child you were. Sign the version you would actually choose. That signature is what this week already is.